By the time I came around, he was "just" a very good league bowler. On the rare occasions I didn't have school on Friday morning, I was allowed to tag along with him to his league. I'd sit in the fold down chairs throwing back Cokes, while watching him and his team hit strike after strike. These were men with names like Lefty, Earl, and Rusty, guys whose hairstyles were low and flat (for those with hair) and grossly out of style for the 1970s.
On our Saturday bumming mornings, the Junction Bowling Lanes was frequently a stop. He had a locker there to store his ball and shoes. Sometimes we'd eat breakfast at the grill - greasy eggs with thickly-cut fried ham - sitting at the counter, just the two of us.
Dad retired from bowling when his best friend, Earl, was forced to stop playing due to health issues. Dad retired purely out of solidarity.
The Junction Lanes is gone now, converted into an educational software company. I interviewed with them last year, and couldn't help but be awestruck at the transformation. The director's office was in the very place Dad and I would eat those artery-clogging breakfasts 40 years earlier. His desk was actually a piece of one of the lanes. Although I didn't ask, I did wonder if the men's room stalls were still covered in graffiti and women's numbers.
My kids will never know the joys of such a blue-collar experience. Oh sure, we go bowling now and then, but today's alleys are high tech with retractable bumpers and electronic score keeping. Some even have noisy arcades attached to them.
But, you know, my kids couldn't ever have the same bowling alley experience as I did for entirely different reasons. I can't bowl. When it comes to my dad and me the apple doesn't fall far from the tree on a lot of issues, but when it comes to bowling, I'm not even in the same orchard!
You offered me a memory that I had forgotten about. I went many times to the Junction Bowling Alley--probably before you were born? It was an awesome place.
ReplyDeleteKaren